Denver Public Library Western History Collection] “The Grizzly’s Last Stand” in Denver’s City Park is show in the 1930s. The bronze statue of a grizzly bear and two cubs was sculpted by Louis Paul Jonas in 1930 and donated by J. A. McGuire to honor the vanishing beast.

In Colorado the grizzly and Bigfoot have a lot in common. Both are prehistoric, and for both their possible presence today is more a product of investigation and theory than verifiable reality. They share a common history, a common possible range in Colorasdo and modern history that blends fact and legend.

There have been a lot of alleged Bigfoot sightings, there are no documented finds, at least not by anyone I would actually believe. On the other hand, no grizzly has been documented in Colorado since Sept. 23, 1979, when a 16-year-old sow attacked bow-hunting guide Ed Wiseman south of Pagosa Springs near the headwaters of the Navajo River. Wiseman stabbed the bear to death with an arrow as it tore into him. The bear was more than 350 pounds. Its hide and skeleton were donated to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. She reportedly had cubs.

“Even though both big cubs got away clean, Colorado wildlife officials inexplicably chose that moment to declare the grizzly extinct statewide . . . even as they quietly hired a researcher to comb the San Juans for evidence of more survivors,” David Peterson wrote in “Ghost Grizzlies: Does the Great Bear Still Haunt Colorado?” “Across the next 28 years, many credible grizzly sightings were reported, in both the San Juans and the adjacent South San Juans. Yet the official word remained: gone.”

The disco-era bear was a surprise, even 33 years ago. Before that, the last grizzly was killed in 1952, another female whose cubs are said to have escaped, feeding the theory of a lost, elusive colony.